


Should Have Known

by Daisy_Anne



Category: Alexander Hamilton - Ron Chernow, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2018-03-12
Packaged: 2019-03-30 08:30:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13947759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daisy_Anne/pseuds/Daisy_Anne
Summary: People tell you that they love you for two reasons; because they genuinely feel so, or because they were trying to hide something from you.





	Should Have Known

**Author's Note:**

> Eliza centric, with some not-quite-Hamilton bashing. Set during Burn.

People tell you that they love you for two reasons; because they genuinely feel so, or because they were trying to hide something from you.

Eliza never thought that one day, she might be at the receiving end of the latter. and yet there she was, hands shaking while holding the Reynolds's pamphlets, all ninety-one pages of them. the front paper were wrinkled and wet from tears--big, fat drops running from her face. Angelica always jokingly said that she was a graceful crier, beautiful even when she wept.

but not beautiful enough for her own husband, it seemed. 

Shaking her head, Eliza’s grip on the paper tightened, her brains working a million miles per millisecond, analyzing every single moment she’d spent with Alex for the past year.  _1971, God._

_A year._

A year of him seeing another woman behind Eliza’s back, bringing her to their bed-- _their_ bed. lying to her by the face, faking every letter, every sweet interactions with her, lulling her to lies and fraud and  _betrayal._

 _“_ He said ‘ _I love you’_ too many times.” Eliza said out loud, her voice cracking, sounding like the beginning of a maniacal laughter. there were little torn marks at the edges of the pamphlets. Eliza hadn’t read a single word, hadn’t opened past the cover. Frankly, she wasn’t sure that she could. 

“ _I love you, Betsey,”_ He had said before bed, a new routine that started roughly last summer--roughly the same time his illicit affair started. 

“ _You’re the love of my life, Sweetheart.”_ He had said one day as he stepped inside the house one night after work. His face was tired, ghastly, like he was guilty of something. Eliza learned later that it was the day his husband were caught by  _that woman’s_ husband, prompting Alex to begin paying money to vouch the secrecy of his affair. 

“ _My love,”_ Alex had said it too many times when referring her to his colleagues, and it used to make Eliza’s heart bubble with joy, but now there were shame and anger in her chest instead. He didn’t mean it--he said it just for covers.  _lies. lies. lies._

“ _Be careful with that one love, he’ll do what it takes to survive.”_ Angelica had said, and Eliza had brushed her off back then, chalked it up as bull. But now, but now--

Something flickered in Eliza’s chest, like a wildfire, like  _madness._

She grabbed the candle by her bedside, angling the fire to the edges of the pamphlets. the flame consumed the papers in second, and before long they were ashes down the floor. 

once started, Eliza didn’t stop. she grabbed everything she had--every proof of Alex-- _no,_ Hamilton’s--’love’ for her. The letters from their correspondence before marriage. the ones they exchanged when he went to war and she was pregnant with Phillip. the little notes they often left for one another in random spots around the house.  _All of them._

All were fed to the flames. 

The blue fire still danced in front of Eliza’s eyes when Alex entered her bedroom-- _ **hers** , it was hers now. he had  **no right,** no right after what he had  **done** \--_with wild eyes and heavy breaths. She sat still as Alex scrambled, trying to put the flames out, trying to salvage the remnants of the letters. 

“Eliza,” He said, his voice broken, cracked and hoarse, like he had been heartbroken. Something twinged in Eliza’s chest, something akin to pity and forgiveness and  _love. “_ Eliza I’m so sorry--”

But the flames spoke harder. 

“I  _love you,_ Betsey, I swear to God and everything that I have,  _ **I love you**_ \--”

 _Lies. lies. lies._ Whispered the flames.

Eliza stood up, not sparing a glance to her crouching husband, on his knees as he begged for her forgiveness. She took a shuddering breath, the anger steadily filling her veins, spreading through the tips of her fingers.

softly, almost like a whisper, she said, “I hope that you burn.”

Even as she exited the room, her tears hadn’t stopped once. 

_fin._

**Author's Note:**

> I've been listening to Hamilton non-stop and had watched the performance only yesterday through shitty bootleg. All I'm saying was that if that crap recording of Eliza singing Burn as she set the papers aflame were enough to make be bawl, I probably couldn't take being physically present in the actual theater.


End file.
